Just out of interest...Have any member's social media accounts had a hack attack lately ?
The one I'm dealing with had used a copy of my profile photo but had added something extra to the photo, ( I guess they couldn't use a copy of the original one in use) plus they had spelt my last name wrong....
They had contacted one of my sisters in the UK (offering something similar to what they had offered me) my sister told them in no uncertain terms to отвали F%#K Off...
It first came to my attention last week when I had a friend request from what at first I thought was my real friend (it had what looked like her photo in the profile)...
Anyhow when I asked how her work was going she didn't answer, instead she rattled on about this international charity who give out what's called 'poverty grants' and went on to say that she had received something like $50,000 from them, then she posted a link and said check them out, (alarm bells rang) so I asked more personal questions about her work, again she didn't answer, she just said I needed to click on the link immediately before I miss out....
So I posted a grinning face 😁 and blocked whoever it was using what looked like my friend's account...
Hmm I wonder if hackers view their job as a Right livelihood ?
Comments
Happy to hear you remained vigilant and stayed safe as a result @Shoshin1. Hackers are certainly getting more clever as the evolutionary arms race of cyberspace is in full swing. Recently I got a notification from an official paypal email indicating I had a $500 invoice ready to be paid...to an email address I do not have a paypal account associated with. I just ignored it. I do a lot of ignoring of this kind of stuff these days.
The video is hilarious and very interesting.
Why does it remind me of understanding sutta and applying it to experience?
A Hacker mindset makes me think of putting mara to good use. Examining your own weaknesses and simulating an attack on self can have many benefits.
Chatbots like ChatGPT are currently getting a lot of attention from the AI community, but they can certainly be applied to these kinds of uses. Soon whatever about you is known to the big databases is for sale to these hackers and you’ll even find them coming up with all kinds of facts about you. I’m pessimistic about the future in this respect.
Yes ..It would seem any online activity we do, eg online banking, online payments, emails etc, could become targets for hackers to hack into accounts steal IDs, syphon money from online accounts etc...
And as cyber security companies come up with better anti hacker data protection, so the hackers come up with better hacking methods/techniques...
What's interesting is the cyber security experts and the hacker are made from the same mould....
There is a fake profile of mine going around Facebook... Reported it many times and Facebook requested I send them a copy of my ID to verify this. HAHA! Yeah right I'm going to do that! Just like facial recognition, no way. Like you mentioned Shoshin, "cyber security experts and hackers are made of the same mould".
Once a friend copied my photos and description for a dating app (Tinder). I was really pissed off, but could not do much.
Regarding hackers, once I got an email threatening to leak all of my porn visits to all of my relatives and boss if I didn't pay ransom. I laughed quite hard and ignored the threat.
I've been living social media free -except NB- for quite some time now. I'm even thinking in dropping the smart phone for an old school one and just keeping my tablet for "modern day" apps that are essential without this tool (Banking (paperless is now the rule); e-mail; Telegram, Whatsapp, Line, you name it...)
But it can go too far; last time when I tried to buy my Macintosh computer from Apple my bank stopped the money transfer three times in a row on anti-fraud grounds. I had to phone their serious fraud office in Luxembourg in order to get them to allow the transfer through.
This happened once for me for some speakers I bought on NewEgg. They were only about $100. That seems to tell me tech is what fraudsters go for.
I will be leaving Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram on New Year's Day.
I have far too much going on in my life to be bothered with (Anti)Social media and stuff & Nonsense.
I just came across this one from Mr Snowdon ....The stuff which nightmares are made of...
Somebody's watching me
Private Eyes
Snowden has good reason to be paranoid, he’s probably on a number of ‘to be hacked’ lists at the government level.
I suppose you are what you eat. He has lived and continues to live in a world of spy vs spy. It's where his attention and time is spent. If you think people are watching you, you act in a way that reflects that. If you act in that way, people may pick up on that and act in response to that.
It's a good lesson in why practicing 4 Brahma Viharas produces good for you and good for others.